What’s in a Name? Is it a Waste or a Resource?

This paper examines the structure and character of the international governance of waste trade in the context of globally embedded sustainable development and circular economy norms. The transboundary trading of waste has been governed at the global level since the 1980s, with the last decade seeing a ‘Cambrian explosion’ of regulatory actors, instruments and scope in the waste trade regime, all governing under the logic of ostensibly identical environmentalisms. From the outset, the impetus has been to restrict and control the export of hazardous wastes, primarily to developing countries. Today, however, cross-border waste flows that cause severe danger to humans and environments have never been so prosperous, particularly those that are illegal and sent to poorer nations. A study to understand the contemporary waste trade regime at the global level, something of academic neglect thus far, seems urgent if we are to understand how such activity is continuing in spite of extensive transnational governance. The purpose of the study is to provide thorough insight into the contemporary waste trade regime’s structure and cohesion (i.e. whether it works synergistically or conflictingly) and thus the ‘efficiency’ of transnational waste trade governance. I show global waste trade governance to be a transnational regime complex, constituted from two approximate groupings of governing entities, ‘ecological modernizers’ and ‘civic environmentalists’, defined by contrasting interests and ideas. Whilst much conflict between and within entities exists, often hidden by greening discourse, I show the regime to be in overall alignment given most actors’ adherence to resource efficiency and growth logics.